Foxconn's Sporty Side; Why 'The Wire' Looks Like So Good

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We realize there's only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today: That Wire look is no accident, Foxconn has a nice track for a light run, and David Letterman is rendered quipless by Larry Bird and Magic Johnson

Marketplace snagged video from inside China's Foxconn complex where your iPad was made. It's very sterile and vaguely disheartening, but not unreasonably. What's very nice is the tour of the Foxconn campus, which seems to resemble the campus of a community college or a retirement community where everyone goes to work and builds iPads. There's even a jogging track, with bleachers, which are probably helpful when Foxconn holds a big cross country meet. [via Marketplace]

Larry Bird and Magic Johnson went on the Late Show last night to muse about their rivalry. They've done this before, but Letterman was transfixed and earnest for (nearly) the entire time. These stretches are few and far between -- usually they happen before or after a Foo Fighters performance -- but when they do, it's impossible to look away, because it would mean not engaging fully in something David Letterman considers truly important. Nobody else in television commands that kind of respect. [via CBS]

Here's a video of security guards politely ejecting someone in a bright green marijuana leaf suit from the Toronto Blue Jays home opener. If you have to be ejected from a baseball game while dressed like a giant pot leaf, this is the way you'd like it to happen. No raised voices, no fisticuffs. Canada's ballpark cops are all class. [via mcdexyg]

In the long-but-good department, a Norwegian film professor has produced a thorough analysis of the visual style of The Wire. The argument is that that Wire feel comes from a streamlined, disciplined style that doesn't seem particularly special -- it's not a Miami Vice "look" -- but actually lets the audience see and hear more than we even realize. It's a tad film school-y, but you don't have to be an aspect ratio snob to notice how the camera is perpetually probing the action even when it seems stationary and how the show's montages actually count. [via Fast Co.]

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.